Student delivered graduation speeches tend to be boilerplate blather. Speakers are usually selected because of their high grades rather than oratory skills. Staff work with students to hone the speech into the expected form and message – “Our high school years were great, we overcome difficulties, and now we move on to new challenges. Congratulations Class of 2021.” The system broke down last week at one Long Island, New York school because of a very brave young woman who delivered a real heartfelt speech. She should have been congratulated, instead she was allowed to be attacked by people in the audience and was abandoned by educators who should have defended her.
Huda Ayaz, a seventeen-year old young woman of Pakistani descent who wears a religious head covering, was one of three students chosen from among the 147 graduating seniors to deliver a graduation speech at Wheatley High School in East Williston, New York this year. Ayaz followed established procedures, a preliminary draft of her speech was approved by school administrators, she understood she was permitted to make changes if she wished, and she submitted a final version to the school’s principal via email for approval. The principal later acknowledged he had not carefully read the updated version before sending Ayaz an email confirming receipt.
At graduation, Ayaz delivered the final version of the speech she had emailed to the principal as required. In her speech, Ayaz encouraged her fellow students to “Speak for those who don’t have a voice, and stand up for any injustice that you see. Educate yourself about international dilemmas, including the ethnic cleansings of Palestinians and Uighur Muslims. Families are continuously torn apart, and real human lives are being lost but ignored.”
Educate yourself and advocate for others seems a perfectly appropriate message for a high school graduation. Ayaz highlighted two incidences recently in the news that most concerned her as a Muslim and as an American. No nation, religion, or ethnicity was singled out for condemnation.
No one got up to defend Ayaz when she was booed from the audience as she received her diploma, although one rowdy person, presumably a parent, was escorted from the campus. No one in authority addressed the crowd valuing Ayaz’s moral challenge to students or defending her right to her views. According to her attorney, Ayaz was later verbally accosted after the ceremony ended and security guards had to restrain the individuals.
Instead of publicly defending Huda Ayaz and freedom of speech and thanking her for challenging students to educate themselves on international issues and act appropriately, the school principal sent out an email to people who attended the graduation apologizing for the content of Ayaz’s speech.
“I apologize that such a wonderful ceremony became marred for many people in attendance due to those remarks. As an institution of learning, we will take what happened today and strive to make further sure our students understand the lessons we seek to teach above regarding time, place, openness and appropriateness.”
The superintendent of the East Williston School District also sent an email stating “There was a very upsetting moment during the graduation ceremony when a student speaker inappropriately inserted political speech into a graduation address.” The superintendent promised to take necessary steps “to prevent such an upsetting occurrence ever happening again.”
But wasn’t Huda Ayaz’s speech what school is supposed to be about? Wasn’t Huda Ayaz doing exactly what she was taught to do: think critically, marshal arguments supported by evidence, take a clear moral stand, and act based on her beliefs. Is learning supposed to be turned off at graduation ceremonies?
I also need to ask, would the response to Ayaz’s speech have been different if she asked the graduates to educate themselves about the rising tide of anti-Semitism and anti-Asian attacks in the United States? Would that have been considered too political?
Ahmed M. Mohamed, legal director for the New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations and a lawyer for the Ayaz family, charged, “The school just abdicated their role in protecting the student. They threw this child, 17-years-old, under the bus, and in essence said, ‘We’re not going to protect you. We’re going to look out for ourselves, you’re out on your own.’” Both Huda and her father had to receive medical treatment at a hospital after the graduation ceremony because of anxiety.
I agree with Ahmed Mohamed. Not only does the East Williston School District owe Huda Ayaz an apology, but it owes the entire graduating class an apology for not standing up for the democratic values it taught them about during their school careers.
Congratulations Class of 2021. Your high school years were great and you overcome unprecedented difficulties. Hopefully now you are prepared to move on to new challenges and will do a better job at it than your parents and educators.
Follow Alan Singer on twitter at https://twitter.com/AlanJSinger1.